A moment of sheer brilliance from teenager Starford To'a that lit up the Knights' otherwise gloomy pre-season trial performance against Cronulla last Saturday.

This 18-year-old, who with his first touch of the footy in the top grade, picked up a loose bouncing ball on the right wing and with little room to work in, made Sharks' premiership-winning winger Sosaia Feki look like a novice with some dazzling footwork before scoring untouched.

Knights coach Nathan Brown, who has had To'a training fulltime with the senior squad for the past six weeks, was suitably impressed.

"There's no doubt he's got nice feet," Brown said.

"Feki's won a grandfinal with the Sharks so to do what he did shows the sort of talent Starford has. He's still got parts to his training and game that he has to work on but he's got that natural ability that will take him places if he gets the other stuff right.

"In an ideal world, he'll have a good strong year in reserve grade and focus on a big off-season for next year. But you just don't know how quickly they'll improve so we'll have to wait and see."

As it stands, To'a is not in the club's top 30 and is not a development player so is not permitted to make his NRL debut this season. But the club still has three development spots up for grabs and it is not out of the question he could land one of them before June 30.

The club has Elite Pathways recruitment manager Alex McKinnon to thank for the signature of the Auckland born and raised To'a.

He spotted him playing in a New Zealand schoolboy game in 2016 on live stream and really liked what he saw so the Knights pounced. 

"I actually told the club that I wasn't too keen on coming over but they took the risk to sign me and I waited until I finished school before moving over in November, 2017," To'a said.

"I actually wanted to go to the Warriors and asked my manager to sign me with them because I wanted to stay in New Zealand.

"But they didn't want me so the only option was to move to Australia. Once we started playing last season, I've loved it here and never looked back.

"To get a run with the big boys and to score the try - that was real special. The big thing for me now is just to work real hard and do by best."

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McKinnon said it was a massive step for players such as To'a to come to Newcastle and he credited the club for putting a lot of time and effort over the last couple of years into getting the process right of relocating kids and making sure their welfare and education is looked after.

"If you talk to Star, he calls Newcastle home now and to me, that's the biggest thing. You want to see him do well when he plays footy but I think coming to the Knights may have changed his life,"McKinnon said.

"There's a lot of people at the club that genuinely care about him. I'm just happy that he's happy to be honest."